Salmon farmers in Iceland are aiming to increase
production levels by 500% in the next five years, according to the country's
leading salmon producer. Arnalax may have been the only producer to harvest salmon in the island nation
last year. But, even though they harvested a relatively meagre 6,000 tonnes,
they have big ambitions to increase this figure, as have a number of the
country's other fledgling salmon firms. Speaking to The Fish Site in Brussels this week
Vikingur Gunnarson, Senior Director of Arnalax, explained how the opportunities
for the country's salmon industry to evolve have emerged. "The average sea temperature has increased by a few
degrees over recent years, making it more suitable for on-growing salmon at
sea," he explained, "and the improvements in the equipment available mean that
it's possible to safely upscale production in relatively exposed sites. As a
result, we aim to increase our production year by year. We harvested 6,000
tonnes last year, forecast 10,000 tonnes for this year and hope to increase this
to almost 15,000 by 2018." "When the capacity of other producers is added to this
we see the country producing around 50,000 tonnes within 5 years," he adds. Investment in state-of-the-art equipment will help to
facilitate this expansion. "We operate using the same technical standards used
in Norway, which ensures we use the best equipment," Vikingur adds. Indeed, Arnalax has recently bought three Akva feed
barges, the most recent of which has a 650-tonne capacity - feed needs to be
transported from Norway or the Faroes, so it makes sense to be able to
stockpile large volumes on site. Equipment, feed and technical standards are not the
only things that are being imported from Norway, however - a number of
Norwegian salmon producers have also invested in Icelandic firms recently.
Indeed, Salmar snapped up about a quarter of the shares in Arnalax in late
2015, while Norway Royal Salmon acquired 50% of Arctic Fish, in a deal worth €29 million, last year. This led to the Icelandic firm's
decision to switch its focus to salmon production. Although Arctic Fish was originally established to
produce rainbow trout and Arctic char they released their first batch of
home-grown smolts to sea last summer - and they plan to consolidate this goal
with the construction of a new RAS hatchery which will be capable of producing
7 million smolts a year. Indeed, it is currently the need to increase smolt
production that is proving the biggest obstacle to the country hitting the
50,000 ton target. "The real bottleneck is smolt production, we need
to build up our smolt facilities to allow us to expand, says Kristian
Matthiasson, CEO of Arnalax. The good news is that conditions favour smolt
production in Iceland, with many areas having access to geothermal power, and
many having access to both salt and fresh water supplies too. Arnalax currently operates two smolt plants - one near
Reykjavik and the other near their main growing area in Westfjords - but are
looking to upgrade these soon. Demand for Icelandic salmon, being such a niche
product, is currently high and Arnalax exports 60% of its produce to the US and
the remaining 40% mainly to the EU, although there is a domestic market for it
too. "Jamie Oliver is about to open a restaurant in Reykjavik in the next few weeks," says Kristian, "and he has chosen to
include Arnalax salmon on the menu, which is great publicity for our brand."
Artic Fish: Hatchery for Arctic Trout in Talknafjordur in south part of the Westfjords of Iceland
Reproduced with permission. Copyright: The Fish Site
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